Tallahassee, FL – Florida State University and the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) continued its partnership with the USAID/Lebanon Higher Education Capacity Development (HECD) Program by welcoming a group of 19 university staff members from Lebanon to Tallahassee. The group spent five days focusing on career development programs with much of the program hosted by The Career Center at FSU.

“Education Development Center (EDC) is fortunate to coordinate with Florida State on this project,” said Bill Potter, Project Director of the Higher Education Capacity Development Program. “We invited 19 Lebanese colleagues representing ten universities to FSU. They were here to observe best practices in career services. We had a series of presentations and visits at The Career Center. Innovation Hub and Alumni Relations Office.”

“We were so impressed with the level of facilities here at Florida State, the level of professionalism and the multi-layers of support FSU is providing to students through their career services outreach and resources. We are impressed with Florida State’s ability to accommodate these international visits.”

While at FSU, the university staff took part in sessions focusing on career advising and intake, individual and group career counseling, assessment and computer-assisted guidance, career-panning classes, experiential education, on-campus recruiting and numerous other topics focused on career placement.

The program also included reviews of the Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) theory that serves as the theoretical underpinning of the Florida State University Career Center, selected innovative student engagement career programs, the FSU Garnet and Gold Scholar Society, the FSU Innovation Hub and the embedded college liaison internship program. There were also meetings with the Office of the President, Vice President for Student Affairs, Learning Systems Institute and Alumni Association.

“Our Lebanese colleagues have been so impressed with all they have seen,” said Potter. “They are excited to take back with them the learning points from this week, synthesize those points and then develop action plans on how they go about improving the career services systems at each university. Moving forward, they will continue to be in touch with the FSU team as they develop plans for enhancing the career centers in Lebanon.”

Dr. Jeffrey Milligan of the Learning Systems Institute served as the Principal Investigator for the joint venture with HECD. Dr. Milligan focuses on international development and served as the LSI host for the Lebanese delegation.

"Over the past several years Lebanon has struggled both with the twin calamities of the COVID crisis and a virtual collapse of the Lebanese economy,” said Dr. Milligan. “Despite these difficult circumstances, our colleagues at the ten HECD partner universities have persevered and continue to work courageously toward a better day for their students and their country. It is inspiring to work alongside them in this important endeavor." 

HECD is a $10 million USAID-funded project which develops the capacities of Higher Education Institutions to better prepare their graduates to be successful in labor markets in Lebanon and around the world. HEIs are better equipped to deliver job readiness skills and career services to help students make the transition from academe to work, to engage meaningfully with local employers, utilize data to make programmatic decisions and to seek and secure external funding.

LSI is at the forefront of developing innovative solutions that bridge theory and practice in education. Our experts’ advanced research not only provides state-of-the-art methods but also a clear path for implementation. For more than 50 years, LSI has delivered systems that measurably improve the learning and performance of organizations and individuals here in Florida and across the world.

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